A month before Delhi University Students’ Union (DUSU) elections is expected to take place, the campus is abuzz with different students’ organisations launching campaigns to garner support from students. The main election issue, for the unions, will be the erstwhile four-year undergraduate programme (FYUP).

According to a notice issued by the university, polling will take place on September 12.

Even though students’ unions had initiated contact programmes with students — in anticipation of the polls — during undergraduate admissions in June, the rollback of FYUP, following a year-long struggle by students’ and teachers’ groups, will be their main focus.

“We are trying to consolidate the immense support which we received in the last one year. After a long time, a students’ movement has created such an impact, leading to the scrapping of FYUP. In our manifesto last year, we had promised that we will ensure its rollback and we fulfilled our promise. The biggest issue this election season will be the scrapping of FYUP because of our struggle,” Saket Bahuguna, Delhi secretary of BJP-backed Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) said.

Congress-backed National Students’ Union of India (NSUI), on the other hand, is concentrating on getting students’ attention by addressing the fate of undergraduate courses after the rollback.

“After FYUP was scrapped, there was a lot of confusion among the new batch of students and those who were part of the old batch about the structure of courses they will be taught this year. We will take steps in ensuring that they do not suffer,” Amrish Ranjan Pandey, NSUI spokesperson said.

Last year, ABVP had won three of the four positions in the elections while NSUI was left with one post.

Meanwhile, the left-leaning All India Students’ Association (AISA) is also planning to ride high on the anti-FYUP campaign that it had launched earlier. “These elections should be seen in continuum with the developments of the last semester. The controversy surrounding FYUP… had brought students together, with discussions being held in classrooms, in the cafeteria, everywhere. Now that discrepancies in its implementation have been exposed, we plan to take up the cause of students who were the worst hit — the BTech students…,” Sunny Kumar, Delhi state secretary of AISA, said.

Last year, AISA emerged as the third alternative on the campus, which had always seen a two-way contest between the ABVP and the NSUI, with all its four candidates bagging the third position in the polls.